


Progress

by entanglednow



Category: Lost
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-12
Updated: 2010-04-12
Packaged: 2017-10-14 15:26:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/150737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/entanglednow/pseuds/entanglednow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They're not always trying to kill each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Progress

  
Esau comes out of the night and into the temple with an air of impatient arrogance. Like he's looking for something, or like he expects something, and Jacob can't help but raise a curious eyebrow in response.

The stone is still warm, but not close to as warm as the hand that finds the back of his neck, curves there and pulls him close.

There's antagonism and manipulation in every wet slide of mouth. Quick and perfunctory. As if Esau believes this is some strange ritual that has to be completed before he can demand anything else. Anything more.

He makes it feel like a chore. Like he begrudges Jacob even this. When he's the one that starts it, the one who always starts it. When he's the one who dares - who still dares, to be greedy.

"You're the one who insists that flesh is pointless," Jacob says. Between one hard kiss and the next. In answer to a question not spoken. It's not an argument, just a statement of fact.

Esau tips his head, mouth twisted up at the edge like nothing is important but what he thinks now, right this second. What he has decided to believe. To make law.

"Why do you come to me if you hate me so much?" Jacob asks, while there's silence, while there's still room in the silence for words.

There's a sharp noise, irritated and impatient. A quick headshake, like he's proven himself predictable once again.

Esau’s hand tightens, briefly, on the back of his neck, testing the sensation of Jacob’s skin under his fingers, or considering the delicacy of his neck. How easily it would break. Jacob’s not entirely sure.

"Let's not make this a tedious discussion. You know why I'm here, and I know you get off on fucking me, so stop pretending you don't. It doesn't win you any points. It'll just leave you frustrated with your own hand on your dick and no one warm to take your frustration out on - and you are frustrated aren't you, Jacob?"

A smile, nothing close to kind.

Jacob exhales, loud and rough, aware that any protest, any response will be met with mockery or irritation. Esau is clearly not in the mood for conversation. And lying to each other is a tangled, messy thing that they stopped long ago.

There's a hard bite at the edge of his jaw, hard enough to make him bleed, but he doesn't. He can’t. They can't hurt each other like that. Never. But Jacob resists, resists the tug of fingers on the laces of his clothes, and the irritated tightness of the other's mouth is impatient and frustrated. It looks very human. He'd hate the comparison but it's there.

Jacob frowns.

"Why do you always have to -"

Esau sighs, loudly and theatrically.

"If you shut up while I use you for sexual gratification I promise to listen to five minutes of your whining afterwards," he drawls.

Jacob should be insulted. But it's an old dance

"You can prattle about destiny and necessity after you've fucked me," Esau insists, again. He draws out the word. Seems overly fond of the obscenity of it, the harshness.

Jacob gives in, he lets Esau push his hands underneath the thin material of his clothes. Lets him pull them free when his interest becomes impatience. Though he barely lets Jacob touch him in return. He barely lets him lay his own hands on the soft-hard shape of his own skin in the darkness. Esau strips quickly, efficiently, finding something - juice or perhaps wine, the sensation is warm but not overly slick. Something not at all fit for the purpose, though Esau rarely cares.

Jacob is lost the moment he reaches forward and touches him, slow slides that are a strange counterpoint to everything else's brief and brutal efficiency. He doesn’t stop until Jacob is breathing in unsteady shivers of air, until he _owns_ him.

Only then does he curve back into the warmth of him and pull Jacob to his knees behind him.

"I know you remember, it hasn't been so long."

Jacob does remember, he remembers far too well and he thinks he pauses a moment, to wonder if this thing between them is really so meaningless after all.

It's not his habit, certainly.

Though he thinks - he would be loathe for it to stop.

"Before I die of old age, Jacob, and for me that would be a feat indeed."

Jacob presses and holds and pushes inside him. The long, tight slide still steals all his breath and all his protests.

There's a solid break in the trail of words, something sudden and shaken. The one, bright moment of silence when there's just a soft exhale and the slow, careful bend back into him. The enormity of the weight of him, pushed in deep and heavy. It’s exquisite, a low clench of fire and sensation that Jacob has no words for, driving in deep and feeling everything in bright, sharp, clarity.

The silence draws out, leads into the next slow pull and push.

"This is what you wanted," Jacob says breathlessly. The words more for him, perhaps, than the man underneath him. The man he's inside.

"You want me to be grateful, then work harder for it," Esau snaps.

Jacob curves over him, hips moving in a steady, hard shove, fingers dug in wherever they can find purchase on sun-warmed skin. The wide curves of the other man's shoulders, or the soft edges over his hipbones. Somewhere vulnerable.

Though they feel anything but.

"You're performing an important service," Esau manages the next time Jacob slides back. "You should be enthusiastic at least. Unless you‘ve forgotten how. I'm fairly sure last time you actually put some effort into this. Next time maybe I should stay in the jungle."

The words are a slow, unsteady slur that catch when Jacob fills him. But they're clear enough. Jacob is tempted to push a hand up into the dark and light of his hair and push it down. Make every breath low and hoarse.

He's barely thought it before his fingers are tightening there, pushing, watching the slow tip of Esau's neck, the warmth of tanned skin stretching forward.

There's a curl of laughter, which quickly turns into a low, obscene noise when Jacob pushes harder.

"If you're trying to shut me up you might want to be a little more forceful."

Jacob is tempted, sorely tempted.

Instead he settles for enthusiasm, rough and untidy.

A low gasping noise is matched by a solid push back into the cradle of his hips, leaving him deep and aching.

"Harder, or I'll leave you here and go and find something better to do," Esau says roughly. Breath a messy flare against the stone. He's laughing and shifting under the hand Jacob has in his hair, daring him to shove his head down harder, to press it into the chill of the floor and just _take._

Jacob doesn't entirely intend the sharp stab in at a different angle.

There's a rough catch of breath and Esau grunts something grudgingly approving, all hard edges and shudder that pulls Jacob perilously close to the edge.

"Again," he demands. Esau's braced forward on his hands. Which are spread on the floor and going pale under every lean and thrust.

Jacob tries to obey.

There's a hard bitten off curse and a shift of hips, lower and greedier until Jacob is the one trying to catch and slow that maddening twist and shove.

"Better," Esau manages. Which is as kind as he'll ever get. As grateful as he'll ever get. That low breathy appreciation, spread between with profanity and edges of genuine malice. The insults and demands matched by the push and rock and twist of his hips leaving Jacob in no doubt at all that this, all of this, is purely for him.

A selfish, greedy search for pleasure.

It's that strange truth that always leaves him obeying every harsh demand, in giving him this when he can't give anything else. Nothing that Esau truly wants.

The slow tightening of every muscle is the only warning he gets and then there is nothing but that vicious stab of need that burns everything it touches. It pushes them together, obscenely, tightly and Jacob can't stop the way he holds on, the way he digs his fingers in and makes sure of it.

Everything is bright and sharp and - melting.

Jacob thinks they are, perhaps, an inevitable chain reaction in every way that counts.

Esau pushes him off and away before he's entirely ready. He leaves him flat on his back, breathing at the stone ceiling and wondering if he will ever be allowed some flavour of victory.

"Four minutes and thirty six seconds," Esau grumbles quietly.

Jacob sighs and lays his fingers on the jumping warmth of the other man's stomach. There's a low growl of protest but he isn't forced to move them.

This, Jacob thinks, is progress.


End file.
